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Bar Feeder choice. Hydrolic 12 footer or Electric Space Saver. Pros and cons.

13engines

Stainless
Joined
Jun 30, 2015
Location
Saint Paul, MN
Just bought a Mori Seiki SL-200SMC lathe with Fanuc 18i-TA control and 12' bar feeder. Super low hours, which I hope doesn't turn out to be a bad sign. Anyway...

My shop is only 2400 sq/ft, meaning this bar feeder is not going to disappear into the vastness of warehouse space. I'll know better whether this thing will be a big problem or not once I start playing around with my layout plans. The dealer I bought from has this Space Saver bar feed in stock, and I'm wondering about working some kind of swap deal if need be. But first...

Bar Feeder.jpg

Space Saver.jpg

My concerns are not about integrating one or the other into the machine. I'll figure that out. Admittedly though it's nice that the 12 footer is already up and running with this lathe. But other then the obvious that you can run full bars in one and have to cut bars into 4 four the other, what are the definite pluses and minuses of each type? I hope that's not too general.

This machine has a sub spindle that can pick off the main, and wondering if that plays into bar feeder preferences.

If these feeders are operating as they should, is this bar whipping thing a bigger concern with one over the other? I should mention that max spindle speed is 4000rpm.

I read about the stub end left in the spindle bore, and am wondering if one type has a better way of handling that last foot or two.

I guess a simple question is... if you have the room, would you ever dream of giving up a 12 footer exactly like the one shown for a space saver type? Are the long ones better? Safer? Smarter?

I ask the same of the space saver types. Safer? Smarter? Ever dream of dumping one for the other?

Thanks all for their time on this.

Dave
 
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if you can make the room the hydro feeders work WAY better ,,, but you need room for it ( about 16' part the end of the head stock and you need room in front of the lathe to load the 12' bar into the feeder ...

I have worked some with servo feeders ( no the space saver ) and well they work ok they can be a real bitch to keep them working ...

LNS made a lot of the 12' single tube feeders ( I have two and plan to cut one down to run 6' bars ,,, them its only like 10 foot off the back of the lathe and the bars well be easy to load.. there SUPER cheap on the used market and work great,,I payed like $200 for each of them . ,
 
Thats a tough one. but going to have to go with the 12footer lns over the space saver.

4 of my lathes were bar feed machines. one lns which I sold and bought a terry bar 2 months into running it cause its light weight. one was a autobar 400 used bars the length of your drawtube. I loved it and if thy still made it today I would have one. (put 20-100 bars on the table hit the button and forget about it.
we made a table extension to hold more bars of 1/2" round brass and telurium copper.
great bar feed never had in issue.

problem is you had to cut bars thats a pain in the ass and takes time. we ended up having the material supply houses cutting them for us as we ordered about 200 12 footers a month.

with the 12 barfeed you have to change bars not a problem unless your running 1.5" and up on brass or steel or ss its gets cumbersome and quit heavy.
having the oil in the tube is perfect as it dampens all vibration. one reason I went with terry bar is the barfeed is alot heavier and they filled them with concrete so they were quite heavy. had 1/8 tubes to 2.125 tubes in a galling style. no liners to change just rotate the tube and your ready to run the next size.

I sold that barfeed in like 1999 or 2000, saw it on craigslist about 7 years ago(it was stting in a field on the back property of a guys shop (wire it up and worked fine) and bought it back for 200 bucks. I used it till we rearranged the shop and got more machines, now its sitting floor against a wall until I rearrange machines again.

if your running small stock under an 1-1/4 the lns will be fine. over that I would consider a terrybar due to the shear weight of the thing.

been looking for a autobar for my miyano, but always a dollar short or a day late when I find them.

Also you should only have a few inchs of drop. as you cut your pusher bars to length, or adjust them if they have adjustment.
 
Wow... between what I dug up today on the www and what you guys have told me, it proves I don't know diddly about bar feeders. But thanks for the input. I looked up this LNS unit and can really get my head around how it works and I like it. My initial impressions of what I saw combined with what has been shared is pushing me to really try to find room the long LNS unit I already have.

Unless someone chimes in otherwise with solid evidence to the contrary, I'm settled on this, at least for now.

Thanks!
Dave
 
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Wow... between what I dug up today on the www and what you guys have told me, it proves I don't know diddly about bar feeders. But thanks for the input. I looked up this LNS unit and can really get my head around how it works and I like it. My initial impressions of what I saw combined with what has been shared is pushing me to really try to find room the long LNS unit I already have.

Unless someone chimes in otherwise with solid evidence to the contrary, I'm settled on this, at lest for now.

Thanks!
Dave

Personally I'd keep it, as its already paid for hooked up and running. why go through the bother of buying another one and hooking it up, save your money for tooling.

did you get spindle liners for the machine with the barfeed? make them as close to the size of the bar you use that way you can almost spin vibration free.
alignment is key pull out the pusher get a lenght of 1" dia PVC pipe like 12 foot or longer. glue a cap to the end pop a 1/8" hole in the center.
get a 1/4" collet in your spindle. put the turret on x0.0 with a drill chuck.

take yellow string(for contruction layout) tie a knot in it send it through pvc tie a bunch of knots so it wont go through 1/8" hole. feed it through draw bar and attach to drill chuck. back your z axis off so it stretchs the string tight.

now move your barfeed, to align the string to dead center of hole in barfeed, into back of drawbar and dead center of collet. your aligned tighten down. and double check.

personally I liek to take the fitting off the back of the tube for the hydrualics and send the line through there tied onto a nail so it doesnt pull through. but the pvc pipe works just as well, you do need to block it up from moving.

always start alinging with the back of bar feed(ie move back 1st) then start on the front as needed.
 
I have a bar loader on my little Sharp lathe. It's been reliable, but I heard it was a pita to integrate- it was a year old when I bought the company and I wasn't around when they installed it.

I run 36" bars- it can hold about 30 bars at a time- load it up in the morning and it goes all day.

Very compact footprint, and the material is entirely inside the spindle when it's running so alignment is less fussy, no oil, quick and easy to change bar size.

All barfeeders are finicky, but this one has been pretty darn good. It's an MTA V-65E, rebadged today as Rebel or something like that.
 

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I got a 3.5m iemca barfeeder with oil. It works great but it takes 15 mins to change from one size to another.

It's alittle big for my small little shop bit it's what I got with my little lathe and I've run slot of parts on it. I've run slot or 100 peaces series. Easy to use and setup

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Personally I'd keep it, as its already paid for hooked up and running. why go through the bother of buying another one and hooking it up, save your money for tooling.

did you get spindle liners for the machine with the barfeed? make them as close to the size of the bar you use that way you can almost spin vibration free.
alignment is key pull out the pusher get a length of 1" dia PVC pipe like 12 foot or longer. glue a cap to the end pop a 1/8" hole in the center.
get a 1/4" collet in your spindle. put the turret on x0.0 with a drill chuck.

take yellow string(for construction layout) tie a knot in it send it through pvc tie a bunch of knots so it wont go through 1/8" hole. feed it through draw bar and attach to drill chuck. back your z axis off so it stretches the string tight.

now move your barfeed, to align the string to dead center of hole in barfeed, into back of drawbar and dead center of collet. your aligned tighten down. and double check.

personally I like to take the fitting off the back of the tube for the hydraulics and send the line through there tied onto a nail so it doesn't pull through. but the pvc pipe works just as well, you do need to block it up from moving.

always start aligning with the back of bar feed(ie move back 1st) then start on the front as needed.

Now there's useful information a guy can take to the shop with him. Thanks Delw.

How about this one if you're still around? A buddy and I are going to go dismantle the barfeed and haul it off along with the coolant tanks and chip conveyor. A little sweat equity if you will. That way the expensive machinery mover only has to deal with the lathe. I can probably figure out most of how to take it apart, and I'm sure there maintenance guy might know a thing or two, but what can I expect as far as needed oil control? Meaning where's the oil, and what do I need to deal with it so I don't end up with a few quarts of oil on this other shops' floor? Funnels? Empty 5 gallon oil buckets? Also can it be broken down to shorten it? Can two guys even carry one of these things with the stands removed?

Also thanks jancollc for screwing with my head and getting me slightly more interested in what a person can do with the other style of bar feeders. If this 12 footer thing goes south, I'll know more for certain that it's not the end of the road to descent stock loader automation.

Dave
 
I wouldn't want that hydro tube at all.
They are cheap - can you guess why?
B/c nobody wants them anymore.
They are late 80's and early 90's tech.

By the late 90's they came out with servo units that are MUCH better for unattended use!

That hydro unit (AFAIK) doesn't ask, nor care how long your parts are.
When you blow a cut-off and it only feeds .050" to the stock stop, it's not going to care.
The lathe will just start another cycle.
That can train wreck your set-up.
If you are running oil (swiss app) this could start a fire.

If you are NOT running oil, then you have this bar dragging in light oil with it all day long.
Maybe no different than greasy LCS tho?
But your alum and SS will be pulling it in too.
The alum likely a LOT more doo to it's surface condition....

The long tube can only run 1 bar and it's done.
The magazine can run all night long (in my best Lionel voice)

Now am not familiar with the space saver unit.
It may or may not be a servo unit, and may or may not be able to check feedout length?


Also, if you have a sub, you don't actually need a feeder.
If you only want to run one bar at a time, you can pull with the sub and set your part counter.
Not as handy on some parts, but I did put an LNS S3 magazine loader into storage 15 yrs ago and set up a Brown and Sharp style stock tube (just 3" PVC inside a 3.5" sch 40 pipe) so that I could run 24' tubes on that machine.
I can run full tubes, 12' bars, or 4' bars.

The stock tube won't let you run long bars as fast as the hydro bar tho for sure.

The 4' loaders will not have "remnant retract", but some (most? all?) of the 12' units doo.
The short loaders will have much shorter remnants, but they need to go out through the front of the spindle.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Geez, now you got me thinking Ox. That's the problem. I haven't a clue as yet about the finer intricacies of running a bar feeder as part of an automated production cycle. So at this point, all feeder types seem to have their values or lack of, in what is for the present my clouded over I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-yet kind of way. I think first and foremost, I should get my head out of the giant stack of manuals that came with the lathe, get out on the shop floor and start measuring and imagining. The smart end of the tape measure may end up answering all these questions for me.

Dave
 
Again - I am not familiar with that short loader, but it does have a pendant on it, so I am guessing that it does have a programmable feedout length.
If so - it should fault out if doesn't feed out far enough.

I'm guessing that you are not anywhere near the point of even keeping it busy all day - let alone overnight, but still - the feed-out check is a very nice feature!
You run to the hardware and come back and it's faulted out ....

I wheeled (flipped? Resold?) four 12' magazine loaders recently, and while I got them REALLY cheap, they went back out the door the same way!
And those were smart feeders even!
No-one wants a 12' feeder these days.
Likely mostly doo to the real estate required?

Not saying that I won't ever employ one, but they are not popular by any means.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
I am fairly happy with my 3 m barfeeder with oil.

But my gosh it's just to big for my little shop. I would trade it for a smaller with magazine in a heartbeat.

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I got a little less that 100 m2 shop. So it's kinda taking alot of my shop floor.
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